Talk About Treats

Are there people out there who are afraid if they start coming to fitness classes that we (the instructors) are going to start razzing them about their eating habits?

We’re asking in our serious voice here. We really and truly want to know if that’s a legit thing. Because it kind of seems like it might be. We hear things. We cannot do the impossible and turn off our hearing when we are in public spaces. So we sometimes hear people conversing about this. Conversations that go a little something like:

Person A: I’m not going to bother going to a class where I’m going to be made to feel bad about eating Christmas cookies. I already feel bad enough about myself, I don’t need someone else to help me feel worse.

Person B: Oh totally. And you know (that instructor) would probably never eat a Christmas cookie so there’s no way she understands. She probably doesn’t even know how good Christmas cookies are!

Person A: Yeah, a real cookie-Scrooge - and I am not down with taking advice from people who can’t even eat an occasional cookie.

Person B: So I guess that settles it - we will just have to be okay with our cookie-bodies and we won’t take any classes so no one can make us feel bad about them.

Side note - referred to instructor DOES eat Christmas cookies. Said instructor very much wanted to open a package and stuff two in her mouth right there just to prove it. But said instructor just walked by and people in conversation didn’t even notice the steam plumes coming out of her ears.

Weird, right??

Here’s a nutty little tidbit for anyone who may have answered the initial question ‘yes.’ (Or for the two people in the overheard conversation.) Our Fit Team instructors are incredible. And incredibly real. We have hearing capabilities AND most of us eat cookies. We have never nor would ever shame someone for eating something that we ourselves partake in and we certainly wouldn’t do so in front of a class. Our instructors have day jobs and kids and pets. We take on instructing because WE LOVE TO HELP.

Full stop.

That’s the end. Right there. We don’t love to help shame people about their choices. We just love to help. Whether we’re helping you find a better head space after our class, find a new exercise you can do on your own, find a group where you fit in, or find a way to tackle your workout in 30 minutes - we just want to help.

That’s the reason every one of us teaches.

Will we talk to you about Christmas cookies? Sure. If you want to swap a recipe or tell us about a family favorite. We’d love to talk about it.

Change Gives and Change Takeaways

With the (cough, cough stupid, cough) New Year’s resolutions around the corner, it’s a good time to talk about change. For those that choose to make resolutions that are intentioned to kick in on January one, let’s talk about change. (And if you want a convo regarding the ‘cough, cough stuipd’ remark - that’s a whole ‘nother post.) For now, let’s address making a resolution because you want to see some change.

Change is give and take. But in the moment, it feels like only give. You give and you give and you give and it seems like seventy years go by before you get to take anything away from all your giving.

But….(oh there’s a but? What is with this Fit Team and their buts? What can we say? We like to point out buts and we cannot lie) is it possible, that when you think you are doing all the giving and taking no things it’s because you’re waiting to take something bigger? Maybe you are taking things, but little things. Small, almost imperceptible things. Things maybe no one else notices and if you don’t think about them, you might not notice them either. But when you stop and think about it, there are little changes??

On the fitness spectrum, it seems like the results of change are a three-legged turtle. Slow and hobbling. Notice we phrased that “it SEEMS like….” because as people who look at you from the other side of things, we see your changes often quicker than you do. Then again, we aren’t waiting for some big change. Some wild grand reveal like a home renovation show finale. No, we’re looking for the little signs and tells that say change is happening. On the inside first (because that’s where change starts.)

We watch as you start, often with trepidation and hesitation and slowly become more comfortable. We may even catch you smiling during a class as that trepidation starts to lose traction and confidence pulls into the parking lot. We watch as you move from anything-comes-before-fitness-class (haircut, root canal, sneezed two times in a row, dog sneezed two times in a row, literally anything) to the point where you’re sharing with the group what you have waiting for you to do after class. But after. Class came first. We see that. We notice as you start to mingle with other people in class. You start arriving at a certain time. You carve out a “spot” for yourself where you feel most comfortable.

And this whole time, you’re going home each day looking in the mirror “waiting” for change. But babe, it’s happening.

We don’t spend our whole days with you because - restraining order - but we’re willing to bet somewhere along the way your energy level has come up a bit. Your stats on your fitness tracker look a little different than when you first walked in. Your eyes have a little more sparkle. And you’re still waiting for the mirror reflection to change but if we could only get you to see yourself the way we do you would see it. You would see you are giving but you are gaining takeaways too.

This is why we use the phrase, “I’m so proud of you” so often. Do you hear us say that? We’re not just picking boosting phrases out of the sky. We don’t say things that we think we’re supposed to in the name of filling silence. We play music in our classes. The silence is filled with the sounds of Bon Jovi or the Jonas Brothers. We don’t need to puff out nonsense over our carefully cultivated playlists. If we’re choosing to use words, they’re intentional. And if say we’re proud of you - you can bet your behind that we 100% mean it.

You Big Meanie

Asking for a friend, how does one go about approaching someone they know and asking them to come to class? Is this a taboo subject among friends/coworkers/neighbors and relatives? Should we treat it like politics and just leave all talk of fitness classes and voting preferences under the table?

We’re being serious here!

As instructors - we can tell you this is pert near impossible to do without sounding abrasive or rude or like we are just trying to get more people. But here’s the actuality, if all we were concerned about was numbers in our classes or names in the attendance sheets, we would stand in the lobby a solid 10 to 15 minutes before class and heckle any patron who walked through the door, pleading with them to give our class a try. And even if they only came once, it would be one more X on the attendance sheet so YAHOO!

When reality is, if you approach someone to do anything with you; go for a walk, go out for cocktails, come to dinner, join game night - literally anything, you are likely doing so because you’ve found some spark of commonality. Maybe it seems you laugh at the same things, you have common interests, your kids are the same age so you bond over the challenges of raising sassy 10-year olds - whatever it is - there’s usually something there to provoke the invitation.

So if knowing we don’t stand in the lobby and invite randos to our classes just to have more people in our classes, does it help soften it if we invite you? Can you look at it as someone who we think might have fun in our class setting rather than some outspoken meaner-head who is trying to tell you to lose weight in some roundabout way?? Because we’re not. We promise.

There’s not one of us - from Bootcamp to Rise and Splash who thinks that if we can get you to come to class that will be a magic button for your life and you’ll instantly be on the path to better health. We’re real. We’re us. We’re humans. We know that coming to class DOES THINGS (like serious things) for our own minds and mental clarity and pent-up aggression, and also, gives us a built-in workout for that one day. But we’re not disillusioned nor are we so full of ourselves that we think our classes are IT. Like you just need our class and that’s all you need.

Nooooooo - if we thought that was the case we wouldn’t attend one another’s classes, would we? We wouldn’t need to. We would too full of our own dopamine droplets to think that another class led by another instructor would give us what we need. But that also, is false. We do attend one another’s classes. We do realize that other instructors have things to teach us that we can gain from - things that have nothing to do with instructing and more to do with learning a different way of working out.

We try to play it very safe when it comes to inviting people to class. We hesitate and approach people the way one might approach an unfamiliar animal. Slowly, cautiously, talking softly like we JUST WANT YOU TO LIKE US AND NOT THINK WE’RE A BIG MEANIE. Most of us are pretty darn fun and likeable!

Basically, if you’ve made it to this point and you ever find yourself in this scenario where someone you know is an instructor asks you if you would ever want to come to ________ class - maybe don’t call her a mean name in your head and find an excuse. Maybe give it just a second or two of thought as to why she asked you. Likely, it has nothing to do with your pant size, your weight or any other number she actually doesn’t know and more about something the two of you might have in common.

And who knows, maybe she thinks it might be fun?? You could always give it a try and see…

Beating Mo-ti-vay-shun (like, with a stick)

Let’s talk about motivation. Or mo-ti-vay-shun. It’s a common word tossed around in the fitness spectrum. It seems like someone is always telling us to find it, or channel it, or strive for more of it. But honestly, we’d like to take a stick and beat that word like it’s a pinata.

Until it’s too beaten to hold shape and then we can take it down and forget it.

So you may be wondering, if the word motivation is often tied to fitness, and you guys are the Fitness Team, what do you guys have against it?

And the answer is a short list of things, honestly. First off, motivation (not the word, but the emotion) is fleeting. It’s something you feel in moments, but it can vaporize quickly. So quickly, in fact, sometimes it vanishes before you ever have a chance to use it. And what the heck good does motivation do if you don’t have a chance to use it when it strikes??

Secondly, if we had to write out motivation like an algebra problem, it would look exacty like this: motivation=inconsistency. And just like any algebra problem, the answer is not negotiable. It is a hard line answer that works the same every single time you try to solve it. As does our version. If you are going to rely on motivation to get you to a workout, be it joining a class, getting in some time on the treadmill, or heck even getting to the gym, it’s going to fail you a LARGE portion of the time. So where does that leave you? It leaves you inconsistent. Because it won’t fail you every time. No, sometimes motivation is like the popular mean girl in school. She talks to you and tells you you’re pretty and makes you feel like you should try new things. You will tap into the newfound sense of motivation for a few days and feel like you are winning at life. And then….. reality sets in. Mean, popular girl (motivation) tells you that those leggings actually don’t look very flattering on you and suddenly you’re second guessing being seen in them and the end result is you taking off the leggings, stuffing them in the bottom of your pants pile and curling up with a book. To heck with the gym. You’re sticking with reading. Books aren’t mean and make you feel bad about yourself in leggings. And mean, popular girl (we’re still calling her “motivation”) is left smirking knowing she stays on top because once again she has managed to pull the rug out from under another person before they can form a habit. Or channel a better emotion.

Cue evil laugh by “motivation.” (Now do you see why we want to hit her like a pinata??)

We can’t beat the word out of Websters. We can’t wish it away on our birthday candles either. So we’re stuck navigating around it. We give it a wide berth - staying as far away from it as possible. Avoiding its use like the list of words your mother forbid you to use when you were younger.

We don’t wait for it to strike because we, as instructors, can’t afford the roller coaster ride that she drives. We have to show up for class each day/week. We can’t rely on something as flitting as motivation to carry us to the gym and through the door. That’s a job better left for those hardy emotions. Discipline. Consistency. Good ol’ fashioned Drive.

Drive allows us to put our cars in reverse and run right over motivation on our way to the facility. Leaving it squished in our driveway. She might be hollering, “Come back, I was going to be helpful today!” but we can’t take that chance. We need to rely on something that’s helpful every day. And motivation - you ain’t it.

Be Data-Fueled

We hear (overhear, maybe?) many of you make comments about “the scale,” “where my weight is at right now,” “that dreaded number” and we are perplexed. Are you talking about the number on the scale? And if so, why?

That is a worthless and baseless number. And so many of you are giving it time and power and precious space in your daily thoughts. And again, why??

Let’s dive into what “your weight” means. Your weight, as shown by the number on a scale, the amount of mass that gravity pulls to hold you to the earth. It tells nothing of your skeletal makeup. Your fitness level. Your genetic predisposition. How well your ticker is ticking. And yet we hear it over and over that some of you are very (overly) concerned with this number.

Friends, if you find that there are things on here that you deem “garbage” please know that you giving any thought or energy to the number on the scale is what we categorize as “garbage.”

But… but, but… how do I know how much I need to lose if I don’t know my number? Okay, let’s get behind this question. First off - you are making the decision that you need or want to lose some weight? Okay, great. Is your doc behind this decision too? Awesome. Onto step two. Next step, let’s get some real data, shall we? Let’s stop taking one number and using it as the end-all-be-all gauge by which we measure ourselves. Instead let’s look at what you’ve really got going on. Step two let’s get the data off of the Omron scale.

What’s the Omron scale? I want one.

You don’t need one. We have one and you can use it for free. And it is a scale that will give us some REAL info. This scale will measure your weight (cuz goodness knows some of you would discredit it immediately if you didn’t have that piece of info) and then it will break that down into categories.

Ahhhh, now we’re talking.

From this scale you will know what your body fat percentage is, but also what percentage of muscle mass you have. You will learn where your Visceral fat number lies and how many calories your body uses in an average day to function. It will also give you your Body Age number. As in, how old it thinks your body is in comparison to your birth age. And once we have this data - now we’re cooking with gas, baby.

Now you can start to make some educated decisions based on actual numbers. (Plural. Numbers, with an s.) Now that you know how many calories your body needs in a single day you can get into what the number of calories is that you want to make as a target each day, creating that deficit if weight loss is your choice.

Now that you know what percentage of you is muscle v. body fat you can work on increasing the former while trying to decrease the latter. And if the next time you use the scale, the weight doesn’t change or (gasp!) goes up, well - knowing that muscle percentage number might give you an answer as to what’s going on. Basically, it’s going to give you answers on your journey.

And now that you know you could have all of that data at your fingertips, doesn’t only knowing your weight and trying to make a change based only on that seem a little… incomplete??

We think so too. Be data-fueled in your decisions.

Instructor Team Behind-the-Scenes

If you’ve ever wondered what it’s like to be an instructor in this facility - you may find this interesting. (Or you may find it boring, but your ability to stop reading and click the ‘x’ button is yours to control. If, however, you’ve ever wondered, well allow us to give you some insight.

No matter the instructor, their age, the class they teach, water, land, whatever, there is a common misconception that this person is confident and has their fitness-related crap together.

But here’s the real story.

They don’t. They are just like everyone else in the sense that they aren’t always confident in their abilities. They work hard in their own time to plan out their class workout and sometimes its awesome and leaves the class feeling empowered. Sometimes it’s meh and on those times the instructor feels it - acutely.

If you’ve ever taken a class and left feeling like it was an ‘okay’ workout. Good but not great. You’re glad you took it because it was ‘at least something’ but it didn’t leave you feeling like you could conquer the world - know on those days, most likely, that instructor went home and chewed her fingernails to the quick (if she was the fingernail biting type.)

She worried and fretted that the meh workout was not going to be enough to bring people back to her class next time. She sat and thought about what she could have done differently or better and she wrote and rewrote her next workout probably eight different times trying to make darn sure it was not going to be another meh.

And here’s another thing - have you ever had the best of intention to take a class? Put it in your calendar? Packed your gym clothes only to arrive at the gym for class and realize you forgot your (shoes, sports bra, leggings, towel, etc)?

Yeah?

Us too. As instructors, that stuff happens to us AND we still have to figure out how to stand in front and lead. As a participant you can decide if you want to attend the class with your missing piece and make the best of it or if you want to scrap it and say, “I tried.”

As an instructor - the show must go on, baby. Borrow, use some duct tape, do it barefoot - whatever you have to do but you don’t have the luxury of saying, “no class today since the instructor forgot her tennis shoes at home.”

No sir-ree. If you have people that show up to take it, you’re leading it.

So, not to let this detain you if you’ve ever felt the call to lead a class, by all means - step up. Send an email. Put a bug in someone’s ear and get the ball rolling. Don’t give up the thought after reading one blog post. We need motivated people who feel the call to motivate others.

But on the flip side, if you’ve ever had the ‘meh’ experience - maybe offer a little grace and give it another chance or two. Or just talk to the instructor in charge and be up front saying something like, “I was hoping for a little more push than I got last time, is that the standard burn I’m going to feel in your class and if so, can you recommend one that may offer a little more intensity?”

It’s perfectly okay to do that. We, as a fitness team, are a team first and foremost. We support one another and often times recommend someone else’s class if it may be a better fit. This wouldn’t offend any of us because the bottom line for all of us is - are people in our community coming to and enjoying the classes that Unity has to offer? We want that answer to be yes.

We’re not perfect. We know that not everyone who takes our class will mesh perfectly with our version of fitness. But that doesn’t mean we won’t work at helping you find a meshier instructor.

That’s the definition of team. We’ve got that down pat. Just don’t ask us the definition of “meshier” - that one is a little unclear to us and probably the Webster's people as well.

Welcome. We're New. Are You?

Well, we’re not sure how you found this page? Did you go down a rabbit hole? Bottom of the trash can? Well, however you got here, whether you stumbled or searched - welcome. We’re happy to have you with us.

A couple key things to note if you’re here; one: check back often. Not everything that is put forth on this page will pertain to you. Some of it you may even find to be garbage information. But hey, not all of it will be garbage. Some will be really informational. And some of it will be so funny you’ll overlook that it’s garbage. So if you don’t find what you’re looking for the first time here, check back. Give us a second chance, man. It’s the least you can do. Two: there’s a whole team of peple that make up the fitness team at this place. Some are more vocal than others. Some give topic ideas and some give tidbits and factoids. But ultimately, there is only one writer of the ideas, and all the rest of the team would like to you to know that so if you want to come in with your burning torches over something that is said here (don’t do that please. We will call the fire people on you,) you should take those torches directly into the office of the writer. And considering there is only one of the fitness team that has an office - we think it’s obvious as to who that is.

And the final food for thought on this post - thank you for being here. Even if you stumbled here. Even if you don’t mean to be here. Even if you wish you could erase the last 95 seconds of your life and pretend you were never here - you were. the blog clicky-thing knows and it doesn’t lie. you came, you were counted and we appreciate that.

remember: check back. Next time you might get something that’s actually useful.